Behold our Ziggurat! – Warhammer Fantasy Battle 1st Scenario
As I mentioned with Thistlewood, the first WFB scenario was in the original edition rule book (in fact, the first volume ‘Tabletop Battles’. The book was written by Bryan Ansell, Richard Halliwell an Richard Priestly (mostly known as Rick Priestly). It was released in 1983 and was quite a small book sold in a box set with all 3 volumes. The Cover art for the box set was by John Blanche while all the artwork for atleast Volume 1 was Tony Ackland. That first volume gave rules of the system, fighting on tabletops and in dungeons, as well as this scenario and a list of creatures.
It has sometimes been said that not alot changed between editions of Warhammer so if you can play one, there aren’t a lot of changes for another, within reason.. and that is kinda true. Looking through these rules there are many of the core elements which stayed while a number of bits which didn’t. But this isn’t about the rule set so much as this Scenario.
The basic story is pretty short and mostly is just to give a set up for this battle which is… Dwarfs vs Goblins and very clearly NOT in any form of what is known as the Warhammer World. It’s short enough that I’ll quote it here:
In the darkling woods of Dwarfstrangle there stands a most ancient ziggurat. Solitary and forgotten the crumbling mound passes century upon century undisturbed until the day in question. Upon this day, the day of this adventure, the 6 Dwarves Sigurd Strongarm, Sigrat Blackbrow, Sigrun Slendershank, Skeggi Brokenback, Saugorn Brittlebone and their leader Thorgrim Branedimm break the peace of sleeping millenia as they stumble, hurredly, into the sunlight of the open glade. Indeed the Dwarves have reason to hurry for they are fleeing for their very lives, away from the forest, away from the Goblin whose cries even now can be heard in the glade.
“This looks as likely a place to make an end of it”, says Thorgrim, “We defend this old temple – for I’d sooner die here with a weapon in my hand than die running with an arrow in my back”.
All the others murmur their argreement in the sullen way Dwarves, and the company deploy themselves on the Ziggurat ready to meet the onslaught of Goblins.
The spelling mistakes, for once, aren’t mine. Nor the poor grammar. It suits it’s purpose but yeah.. it’s not well written by any standard. Story wise, an ancient Ziggurat (technically, very huge structure created around Mesopotamia and have very terraced like outsides. the Sumerian’s were very much known for them and they believes that the gods lived on the tops) build by unknown people, though probably Dwarfs, where this small band of only 6 Dwarfs have to make a stand.
For they table set up, they say you can use books or boxes, or even a picture on a sheet of paper to show the Ziggurat, with a glade and dense woods all around it. This gives a very rough set up really so pretty much anyone can arrange this layout without needing to make alot of terrain specially for this. Which is a great idea for an introductory battle.
It gives the stats for the 6 dwarfs, which are all the same (and… boy is there a problem with typesetting. The stat numbers aren’t align well with the headers but it’s not too hard to work it out) and what’s interesting, is this is more in common with 4ed stat line then 3ed.
In this edition, a unit has 8 stats (not counting name). Movement, Weapon Skill, Ballistic Skill, Strength, Toughness, Wounds, Initiative and Attacks. By 3ed, this has expanded to 12, as it added Leadership, Intelligence, Cool and Will Power. For 4ed, it had scaled back to 9, with only Leadership staying. On top of this, Toughness greatly changed… in a way, from the original as the Dwarves are given a Toughness of C. Later, this was just replaced by a number score.
And in a way, we have Special Characters straight out of the door as the dwarfs in this scenario are in fact “noble and Heroic Dwarves” which have a higher stat line then normal dwarfs. In fact, lets see what the two compare to.
A Normal 1ed Dwarf’s stat line is as follows:
| Move | WS | BS | S | T | W | I | A |
| 3½ | 4 | 3 | 2 | C | 1 | 2 | 1 |
Where as these dwarfs are:
| Move | WS | BS | S | T | W | I | A |
| 3½ | 7 | 4 | 2 | C | 2 | 3 | 2 |
And if you don’t think this change is really making a special character… Thorgrim himself, leader of this band of 6, has his own stat line!
| Move | WS | BS | S | T | W | I | A |
| 4 | 8 | 4 | 3 | C | 3 | 5 | 3 |
They say the Heroic dwarfs have slightly higher then normal stats but.. slighty? 3 extra on the Weapon skill, 1 extra on the Ballistic skill, 1 extra wound, 1 extra Initiative and 1 extra attack is slightly? That’s pretty nice boost. Thorgrim gets even better, with double the Weapon Skill and 3 times of the attacks and wounds of an average Dwarf. They suggest dwarves from their own miniature range (of course) but note that all Dwarf Warriors should wear a mail coat. Sigurd and Skeggi have either a Crossbow or a bow, as well as a sword or other weapons. Thorgrim being a famous Chieften is the bearer of the ancient Warhammer ‘Foebane‘, a symbol of his lineage and majesty. Foebane is a magical weapon which also adds advantages which… are not listed till later as they have a break for a overhead map of the are so show where the ramps on the Ziggurat are and the trees are.
Then we go back to Thorgrim with his stat line (shown above) and his gear. Mithril armour giving him a 4 saving throw, a 3 if you have a shield, where the Warhammer causes fear against all non-Dwarf targets (any non-dwarf targets within 15″). Also each hit… for some reason, gives Poison or more, it’s “LIKE” poison. ALSO it allows Thorgrim to go in and out of Frenzy where he wishes. Well.. people moan at some of the 4ed big deal with pre-made Special characters and just look at this guy!
Oh, by the way, I’m not up on my Dwarves so I decided to have a flip through 4ed Armies book of Dwarves to see if they did anything with this guy cause it would be a nice reference if they did. As I’m sure anyone more up on their Dwarves would know, They did. Thorgrim became the Dwarf King of Karaz-a-Karak. He is known as the Grudge Bearer because of his copy of the Book of Grudges he has with him at all times (Dammaz Kron). He rides the Throne of Power, an ancient Dwarf relic. He gives up on the Ancient and powerful Warhammer (THE warhammer at the time? no clue) in exchange for the Axe of Grimnir, and replaces his Mithril armour for a special Skaldour’s Armour. Oh and gains the Dragon Crown. He can be fielded off the throne if you want. and Looking at his stat line.. he shows his age. A bit stronger, bit better ballistic skill, can make an extra attack but is slower (3 instead of 4) and his skill with weapons has gone down. Toughness? like I said, they replaced the Letter system with numbers so… pass. but all in all, I think the two characters are clearly related.
Now, what about looking at the Goblins. The second player is the Goblins and… I just noticed the Dwarfs don’t have a Victory condition. I noticed this cause the Goblins DO have one. Attack and kill as many Dwarves as they can. So Dwarfs just need to survive the game length. The Goblins start as 3D6 groups which can enter from whatever sides the player wishes as they are surrounding the Dwarfs… and I just noticed another thing.. doesn’t say where the Dwarves start. well.. they are meant to be close to Ziggurat itself so.. oh well.. Anyway, during the first 3 moves, the goblin player can receive up to 6 reinforcements per move. I think they use move as in movement phase, not for each unit that moves. each of these turns, throw a D6 (not roll?) to see how many you get that turn and the DWARF player is the one which picks which edge that appear from. This is meant to show the goblins which got lost in the chase and finally find there way.
The Goblins have a pretty good range of options for the player to pick from. Normal Goblins, Red Goblins or Night Goblins for the main forces (boy, Red Goblins disappeared later one). While the first 6 goblins which are rolled up can be tougher Hobgoblins. There is also Guthnog Bristlenose, the Goblin Chieften who better than an average Hobgoblin. So he is a Hobgoblin? As we did it with the Dwarves, lets look a the statlines here. The goblins one isn’t given as it’s the same as the standard but it is:
| Move | WS | BS | S | T | W | I | A |
| 4/3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | B | 1 | 3 | 1 |
for Night Goblins, it is slightly different, as they have not only night vision up to 25″ (compared to 20″ for all other types) but slightly worse Weapon skill and Initiative.
| Move | WS | BS | S | T | W | I | A |
| 4/3 | 2 | 3 | 2 | B | 1 | 2 | 1 |
for Red Goblins, who unlike over Goblins who ride Boars, prefer Giant Wolves, it is:
| Move | WS | BS | S | T | W | I | A |
| 4/3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | B | 1 | 2 | 1 |
Well.. apart from the wolf thing, which later became standard for normal Goblins, there isn’t alot of difference between these goblin types. We do have Hobgoblins to look at though. the bigger tougher version of normal Goblins:
| Move | WS | BS | S | T | W | I | A |
| 4/5 | 3 | 2 | 2 | C | 1 | 3 | 1 |
Okay, that is some different. Still not a GREAT change but clearly tougher and while I’m not gonna show their stat line, Hobgoblins are pretty close to Orc levels, and.. well.. one stat is 1 point higher, another is one point lower so.. pretty par. Now we have Guthnog, their chieftan with his statline
| Move | WS | BS | S | T | W | I | A |
| 5/6 | 5 | 2 | 2 | C | 2 | 3 | 2 |
They say it’s slightly better than the average Hobgoblin… mm… yeah.. I would say that’s slightly better. three of the stats have only gone up by 1 point, and one has gone up by 2. And since I have it to hand, lets look at 4ed Armies book for Orcs and Goblins to see if, like Thorgrim, Guthnog has carried on…
And the answer is.. Nope. Which is a shame.. Goblin’s don’t really have many Special characters and when they were merging them with Orcs (which does make sense) kinda made them less of a valid army in their own right.. Not that you can’t field a decent Goblin only army. Just they kinda downplayed them as a single force. Like how you can’t really field a Halfling army, Anyway..
We next have some special rules. Players can start their movement phase by looking for rocks and these are on the Ziggurat and can be dropped on troops who are lower then there own level on said Ziggurat. You find them by rolling a D6 and get some on a 4, 5 or 6. It’s a bit interesting that they appear to be large enough rocks that you just drop them but are small enough to have a 50-50 chance of finding them. Anyway, you hit if you roll 2 D6 and score 7 (or above) and they have an attack strength of 2. And it looks like the Dwarfs are NOW given their starting location as it says Thorgrim and his companions have time to position themselves where they like on the Ziggurat and collect 4D6 rocks which they can place where they wish. Mm.. you can place them where you like, but do you still need to search for them? Might say in the other rules but I’m just looking at the Scenario… ah hell with it, I’ve already looked at other related bits…. Couldn’t find it.. interesting. Also not used to their being TWO movement phases in a players turn, though maybe I’m just really rusty…
Anyway, Defenders (the Dwarves?) may, during any move, hide behind broken Masonry if they are on a level higher than any Missile attacker which allows it to count as hard cover. The Ziggurat is also stated to have many levels, ramps and broken ramps. you can’t ascend the broken ramps but you can cross them at half speed, but ramps can be ascended at normal speed. Levels can only be ascended or descended at the ramps. Pedantic me would point out that while you can Ascend, there are no rules for Descending.. but it’s kinda clearly you can go up or down at the ramps.
Finally, well kinda we have the Victory conditions. We already know how the Goblins win but lets see what they say. Goblin Leader (… but the rest of the rules called it the Goblin Player or just Player Two.. keep consistent!) gains two points for each dwarf killed, apart from the leader, who is worth 6. Not bad, a max of 16 points. The Dwarf player (Dwarf Leader? ¬_¬) gets 1 point for each move (phase) he survives with atleast 1 dwarf left alive.. wait.. movement phase? of which there are two in a turn? or turn as a whole? I think Phase more ’cause otherwise, that’s a low target. Survive 4 turns and the Dwarf Player gets the max of… 4 pts. Anyway. They also recommend that you play the game a second time afterwards with the roles swapped and you keep track of the scores to add together to make it more fair… I guess so.. still appears low to me..4 pts for 4 turns, or i it 8 points for 4 turns?
They then give the last bit, suggested tactics. and really, they are only aimed at the Dwarf player. They suggest you make a stand on the very top of the building (go back to calling it the Ziggurat!) but start off on the lower levels and keep harassing them with rocks as you make your way up the levels to keep the Goblins under control. All it says for the goblin player is ‘play according to your dice rolls and actions of the Dwarves’.
Well, this is another Scenario which could very EASILY be ported to most game systems, and it’s a pretty nice one for an introductory battle as it uses not only the basic rules but some more special bits like the multilevel building, Rocks to throw, Re-enforcements and dice roll troop numbers. I also think it’s a very quick and easy one to build as while there is a big building, that’s easy and quick to make as they said with a few books or just drawing the building on some paper, and for the forces? 6 Dwarfs, and up to 37 Goblins (okay, that’s a few but by the time of 3ed and 4ed, that’s just over one unit).
While it is a bit basic compared to Thistlewood, that’s kinda the point and I do think works well and very much does it’s job. The writing of it? err… that’s less good. a quick look through alot of the rules shows a it was less polished then you would expect but it was 1983, things were different ^_^ you could get away with a solid product with less production values.. these days everything has to be all flash and no substance.
Also looking back with a more.. I was gonna say modern, but is 1992-1994 modern? view point, the Dwarf names don’t really fit what what I think of for Dwarves, the building is a bit weird as it doesn’t appear to really fit what I know of as Dwarf structures. While there are hints of the Scandinavian side of the Dwarves, there isn’t a huge amount and the names are pretty… close.. Okay, alot of names are similar but Sigurd, Sigrat, Sigrun? seriously? Skeggi and Saugorn only slightly help the matter. The Goblin side of the story is… well, we have no story for why they are hunting the dwarves apart from that fact that at this point, goblins are pure evil, compared to the nasty mischief I more think of them for later. Maybe it’s just me view of what Evil is which is twisted? to me Goblins are … I wouldn’t say like Cats because people often have a view of cats as kinda cruel or as just more ill moral but Neither of that is true really. Alot of how they play with prey is very natural with many animals in nature. Often they just try to make sure it’s dead, or they just want to play and don’t really know they are hunting the prey. I had a cat who was very playful with animals. She loved feathers so when she caught a bird, she would be very careful and instead hurting it (or atleast, in a visible way) would just catch it and clean it. She would also catch frogs and just bat them with her paws (not claws). If you went towards her to get it away from her, she would carefully pick it up, move it away from me, and then put it back down and play. Completely different to another cat who would try to eat things. He got hold of a small bird once who I don’t know if HE caught it or not, but it had it’s guts ripped out and he tried to eat it and I just decided I might as well let him. It’s already dead, he might has well have some food putting some use to it, but then… He didn’t like the taste.. Threw it back up and never tried to eat one again.
Anyway, the point was I see goblins as not really knowing the difference between right and wrong, so they are quite playful and often go too far. It reminds of me a fantastic fantasy roleplay game ‘Radiata Stories’ which I might have mention before.. probably not, but it’s a great fantasy game which can be pretty dark at times. It’s in a fantasy world where you play as a human, but there are a number of the fairy creatures (Goblins, Dwarves, Elves, Orcs etc). While many hate the goblins, some are more okay with them. One of the first you met is a group known as the Goblin Trio. They try to steal stuff and cause alot of trouble but it’s not THEM that is bad, just their actions. Most goblins are pretty laid back and just like playing around. But the information on the group’s leader Gob is says: “He sits on his elefant steed while going out to commit mischief and mayhem. He loves provoking and teasing other people. There’s no real reason for his behaviour – it’s just his DNA acting up…” which I think is a good description of Goblins in my view and how I have always taken them. It’s a HIGHLY recommended PS2 game by the way. There is soo much content that you will probably never get around to finding and unlocking everything, Pretty much EVERY character can join your party, often after you do something to help them out and you need two play throughs due to the game story split.. anyway, side tracking too much now.
I do like how the Goblins appear in this scenario, in that they are kinda random as to how many you have (3D6 for the initial, and then 3 rolls of D6 for reinforcements) and how they out number the dwarves but are weaker. That does play into the normal stuff with goblins being weak but more numerous.
I think the points system is… a bit iffy.. If move does refer to just moves and not movement, so dwarfs get 2 points per turn… Depending on how long you play for.. If you have a set number of turns (this book doesn’t give a turn limit, maybe one of the other two might) then it’s possible the Dwarfs can build up just by surviving, but if you limit to anything less then about 10 turns, the Goblins can get WAY more points then the Dwarves.. But that said, even the best of goblin attacks isn’t really gonna take out maybe of the dwarfs before turn 3 (if the Dwarfs have decent placement, they are just gonna throw rocks and the goblins are gonna take atleast one turn just to GET to the Ziggurat) and the Dwarf player is gonna score points pretty much from the get go. If it’s per movement phase, 3 turns would mean 6 phases, and the dwarves only need 1 to survive to get the point so that’s 6 points right away. So maybe the scoring is more balanced then I though. Though the idea of two games, where you swap sides at half time, does balance it out more.
Oh and one more thing. You will notice the Goblins movement values has two different values… I have no clue why. A number of the creatures have this. I did wonder if maybe one was mounted, but it’s not. If there was some option where they can move a bit faster some times which needed to be stated in the profile… but no again.. I think maybe they just didn’t know which one to go for. Why sometimes the higher number if first and other times the lower number, Also I don’t know. A quick check through this first volume didn’t help me at all in that, so.. Answers on a postcard please ^_^
Final sub up, looks a nice fun and simple introductory scenario. Would love to play this in probably another system, though I could play this with this simple rules.
